Sex with Africans can stop you from donating blood in Northern Ireland

About 100 sex workers, some wearing masks to avoid identification, and human rights activists, march through Cape Town on International Sex Workers Rights Day on March 3, 2011. Thousands of people worldwide took to the streets to march for the cause including in seven African countries: Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Being a gay man or having sex with either prostitutes or Africans are examples of risky sexual behavior that will exclude you from givingblood if Northern Ireland's health minister Edwin Poots has his way.

In seeking to defend an existing ban on homosexuals donating blood, Poots dug an even deeper hole for himself saying:

"I think that people who engage in high risk sexual behavior in general should be excluded from giving blood. And so someone who has sex with somebody in Africa or sex with prostitutes, I am very reluctant about those people being able to give blood."

Many in Africa and around the world have highlighted the ignorance, stupidity and racism of Poots' remarks, as reported by the BBC, and his comments as might be expected, provoked an angry backlash and a righteous Twitterstorm of disgust and dismay.